S.H.A.K.E. It Up: Government!

We elected government leaders for our SHAKE It Up countries on Thursdays.  Students who have moved to other classes may still be waiting for their election results, but some have found out!  

Please meet the Presidents of the countries Gummikash and United Justiceforall:

a Vice President:

 some Congress Representatives:

and some judges:

During SHAKE It Up this week, we wrote election speeches, presented in front of the class, and then voted for our leaders!

Congratulations to all our future politicians! :)

A Day in the Life of a Third Grade Superhero

8:10 am We come into the classroom and follow our morning routines:

8:30 After spending some time on warm-ups (Daily Language Instruction, or DLI, and Math) we correct them together.

8:45  Let's take a GoNoodle break and get our wiggles and giggles out!

8:50 Spelling pre-test for this week's long i spellings.

9:00 Math!  Today we are learning the Commutative Property of Multiplication.  Here, students are drawing two different arrays with factors of 3 and 4 and discussing with a partner the similarities and differences.

9:30 Recess

9:50 The kids are paired up and given two factors, which they have to use to make two arrays.  We add these onto our Quadrant 1 chart.

10:30 We write in our math journals about the Commutative Property and discuss its pros and cons in terms of word problems.

11:02 Lunch!

11:50 Come back into the classroom for Silent Reading and work on evidence for the 20 Book Challenge.

12:30 Social Studies: learning about the 3 branches of government

1:10 Recess again

1:30 Workshop!  Finish math array flashcards, art, etc.

1:50 Reading: finish our novel The Hundred Dresses 

2:15 Clean up, pack up, color in behavior charts, wipe desks, etc.

2:30  We had such a wonderful day--check out our behavior chart!  Almost everyone was on green or above!

September 16-17

Don't worry, we're not wrestling...we're playing toe tag during PE!  Our group learned about different aspects of being physically fit, including agility, flexibility, endurance, balance, and strength! 

Learning about the Constitution...this was a quiz at the end of a short video.  Your third grader should be able to tell you the answer!  Fun fact: tomorrow is Constitution Day!

You may not always see math papers coming home, but we are hard at work!  Here DJ is solving a multiplication problem on his whiteboard...

...and we usually build in time to explain our reasoning to a partner.  This is a VERY important part of Common Core!

Perfect explanation of an array and its corresponding multiplication equation!

Great job, Carlos!  I like how you showed your addition reasoning!

Nate solved it in two shakes of a lamb's tail!

We used the skill of RallyCoach for our math this morning.  Two partners share one piece of paper and one pencil.  One person solves a problem while the other partner coaches, then they switch roles!  This again gives each person a chance to explain their reasoning as well as solve the problems on their own.

Third graders are capable of so much!!  I love seeing it!

Edible Landforms

We've been learning about landforms and bodies of water, so I wanted the kids to be able to do a related hands-on activity.  After considering play-dough, I found a Pinterest board where they could make edible landforms instead.  Thank you to all the parents who sent in Nilla wafers, brownies, coconut, frosting, graham crackers, and more to make this day successful!  Here are some of our pictures from the afternoon.

The teams' objectives were:
*Use as many different landforms/bodies of water as possible
*Be creative
*Be neat
*Use details and do careful work!

Each group got plates of supplies and frosting with which to create their masterpiece!

The rules for classroom chaos landform creating:

Each group had 3 or 4 team members:

I'm loving the excitement on Mary's face here:

And here are the masterpieces!

After recess and clean-up, we came back to draw, label, and write about our landform art.

And of course, if you make edible landforms, you must eat them!  So the last five minutes or so of school, you would've seen our class doing this:

I loved seeing how they shared the different treats within the tray:

This is the face of a happily sugared-up third grader:

Some of my favorite quotes from the day:
"Miss Raski, you pretend this is a strict class but this is FUN!"
"I'm going to tell my kids about this some day!"

Great job, everyone!!!!